I Tried Out Grabie Art's Watercolor Set

Recently, Grabie reached out to me about having me try one of their watercolor sets. I though it was a great excuse to sit down and mess around in the studio a bit - some “playtime,” which I’m sorely lacking.

They sent me a 100-color half pan set, beautifully packaged along with a small pad of watercolor paper, 3 different sizes of water brush, and their .03 fineliner drawing pen.

Overall, it’s a great beginner set. At a price point of $39.99, it’s cheaper than professional sets such as Sakura (their 96 half pan set retails for $105.74). Below I get into some more details about the pros and cons.

I worked on two small (3x5) pieces with the set. The first one, the poppy, I overworked a bit and will probably paint into with some gouache to lighten up some areas to finish the piece. The second piece, some succulents painted from life, I did a bit more layering and messing around with wet-on wet. Both of these were painted on Grabie’s cold press watercolor paper. I also did a separate experiment on Dick Blick hot press watercolor paper to compare, and the results were pretty similar.

I posted a reel of the work in progress on Instagram, so if you're reading this first feel free to check it out.

Pros

•  As I mentioned above, the price is very reasonable, at $40 on Grabie’s website for this 100 color half-pan set that includes 3 water brushes.

• The colors are very saturated, making them satisfying to paint with. Some student grade or hobby sets can be a bit washed out and hard to get a good result with.

• The water brushes seem to be good quality, and it’s nice they include a couple of sizes/shapes in the set.

• This set is quick and easy to use for illustrators wanting to find a specific color right out of the kit vs mixing - it’s easy to choose a few colors to form a palette for a piece without having to worry about consistent mixing.

• The pastels (more opaque) and sparkly colors are fun accents to be able to use.

• The paper has a nice tooth and holds the colors well. It’s comparable to Dick Blick’s stock cold press paper.

• The set is compact and portable, with a mixing tray built into the top section of the palette.

Cons

• With color names like “Iron” and “Hopbush,” figuring out classic mixing charts is a challenge. Traditional artist grade watercolors have more or less universal names like “Payne’s Gray” “Cadmium yellow” etc that are pretty standard on mixing charts.

• Some colors are a bit oversaturated with pigment, making them grainy in appearance when dry.

• The large array of colors might actually be overwhelming for a beginner.

• There’s no indication of the colorfastness of any of the pigments. That isn’t an issue for someone like me that scans watercolor elements to use in digitally composed illustrations, but it likely would be for a fine artist.

• I had a hard time getting the pigment liner to work on areas where there was a lot of color build up.

Overall, I’d say this is a wonderful watercolor set for beginners, hobbyists/craft artists, or illustrators looking for a fun, ready-to go palette of colors. The quality is certainly better than MANY student grade sets I’ve tried over the years, and again at a price point of $40, well worth it. Many thanks to Grabie for sending me this set and getting my creative juices flowing a bit! Full disclosure: I received the watercolor set for free but did not receive any additional compensation for this review.

And a bit about the company, because I certainly want to know the background of the companies I endorse or support. Their website says Grabie was started in 2021 as a response to the Pandemic, recognizing the importance of art and craft in supporting mental health, and to make art materials accessible and affordable. They contribute art supplies to partner organizations and people in underserved communities and support art therapy through The Grabie Art Fund. One of their partners is the American Art Therapy Association. No specific donation numbers or amounts were available on the website. Another thing the website mentions is zero waste production, but again little supporting information was available so I’ll have to dig deeper into that.   

Feel free to share your own thoughts/experience in the comments!